


Bespoke Suits & Glass Ceilings

by solrosan



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kingsman Family, Kingsman history, Misogyny, Roxy Is a Good Bro, Time line change, Young Harry Hart, life story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 08:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13430586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan
Summary: In 1972, Roxanne “Roxy” Morton became the first female Kingsman agent. Her code name was Lancelot. There had been females recruits before her – the first in 1945 – so the organisation was theoretically prepared for a woman taking a place at the table. In reality, they were nothing of the kind.





	Bespoke Suits & Glass Ceilings

**Author's Note:**

> The main reason this exists is that I watched _Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy_ and made [this.](http://solrosan.tumblr.com/post/169931054637/in-1972-roxanne-roxy-morton-became-the-first)
> 
> * * *

In 1972, Roxanne “Roxy” Morton became the first female Kingsman agent. Her code name was Lancelot. There had been females recruits before her – the first in 1945 – so the organisation was theorethically prepared for a woman taking a place at the table. In reality, they were nothing of the kind. Her fellow agents were all polite enough to her face, but they called her Guinevere, Morgan, and Elaine when they thought she couldn’t hear.

The agency was still steeped in the medieval misogyny that came with their romantic ideas of chivalry. Even with the Cold War still hot she was benched, deemed better suited for back-office work than field work. Merlin, the grey-haired drill sergeant who had conducted their training and who coordinated all the agents and missions from Savile Row, took her under his wing. 

“I’m not grooming you to take over this position when I’m gone,” he told her after she’d had a frustrated outburst about being left behind again. “I know what you are. I trained a field agent. I’m just letting you make yourself useful while we bide our time.”

Merlin was true to his word. He had her map, memorize, and manage drop-off sites. He let her try and consult on weapons project the R&D guys worked on. And because she had studied Russian, he gave her tapes to transcribe and translate. 

Not once did he ask her to fetch him a cup of tea.

Even with all of that, patience wasn’t Roxy’s greatest strength. Neither was keeping her head down. Being quiet and demure hadn’t been what made Perceval notice her and believe in her enough to let her try out for the Kingsman. No, he had noticed her because she’d made top scores at the police academy and knew how to handle a gun. She reminded him of this. Repeatedly. 

Yet she was told to let the grown-ups handle things whenever she voiced an opinion. She couldn’t decide if it had been better or worse if they’d said “men” instead of “grown-ups”. Gritting her teeth, she went back to Merlin’s station 3 000 feet below the tailor shop. She wondered if there was a female KGB agent in a bunker somewhere in Moscow translating English phone calls.

Roxy loudly refused to learn the art of tailoring. It wasn’t required of the agents, but it was encouraged. She was afraid that if it turned out she was good with a thread and needle, she would be stuck at home base forever.

Almost three years after she became an agent, Roxy was sent into the field. Thrilled at the chance to prove herself she still considered refusing since she knew they only let her do this because the mission required a woman. And because Ector called accompanying her “babysitting”. Merlin shook his head and told her to swallow her pride for once. So she did, and she went. 

She came home victorious. The only one not surprised was Merlin, he had trained a field agent, after all.

Things didn’t change overnight. There were still rooms she was shut out of, discussions she knew they kept from her, but no one told her to let the grown-ups handle anything, ever again. They didn’t stop from referring to her with pet names, though, both to her face and behind her back. She barely took notice of it, and called most of them “darling” anyway. There were other fights to be had, and some fights she didn’t even know she could take.

She was sent out in the field again. Then again. She started to collect newspaper clippings of whatever inane thing was deemed the lead news the days when she had helped prevent the world from going tits up. It was a further development of Merlin’s habit to write down the BBC radio news headlines in a special notebook. Merlin did that for all Kingsman missions, Roxy only did it for her own.

By the time The Police released a hit single with her name as the title, she had a pretty solid stack of clippings in her desk and not a single one of the other agents dared to make a joke about the song. She sang it, dressed all in red, at their Christmas party that year to standing ovations. Then she led them in the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, which they all knew by heart, because red is the colour of Christmas after all.

Both things became a tradition for the remains of the Cold War.

When a new position opened up in the early 1980’s – the one for Galahad – Roxy’s gut instinct told her to present a woman as her candidate. She knew plenty of women who would not embarrass her during training. She didn’t know anyone she thought would win, though. So what was worse? Not picking a woman, or being a woman picking a woman for the sake of it? She mulled it over for days without getting any closer to an answer. Then, to her big surprise, Tristan picked a female candidate, and then Ector, and then Merlin. 

So she picked Harry Hart. 

Harry Hart came from a long line of servicemen and had trouble with authority. He had studied to become a lepidopterist before being bullied into joining the army by his dad and uncles. Roxy never managed to get a clear answer on if the butterflies was a real interest or if it was just a way to rebel against his family. To her, it didn’t really matter as long as he didn’t embarrass her. 

Roxy was insanely nervous throughout the entire process. Merlin even barred her from the command centre at one point. When she got the news that Harry was the only one of the three remaining candidates who had managed to shoot his dog she screamed so loudly it was heard to the other side of the Kingsman Manor. She took Harry out for dinner that night, partly to celebrate, partly to say thank you.

Harry was gay. He asked Roxy years later – when he after one too many Martinis finally found the courage to tell her – if she would have picked him if she’d known that. She bluntly told him that it was one of the main reasons she had picked him. 

“There are many people strong enough to kill and to live a life in secret,” she said. “There are however few who have the strength to break with the norms and change structural injustices for the better.”

It’s unclear if Harry was the first homosexual Kingman, but he was the first one to be out to all his fellow agents. Eventually.

The older generation started to slowly drop off, one after the other. Some due to natural causes, most due to unnatural ones. All of them left a gap that needed to be filled. When Percival died, Roxy carried his casket at the head and she didn’t care that the other agents saw her cry. The man had changed her life, she was not ashamed to mourn him.

When it was time for Harry to pick his first candidate he asked Roxy for advice about it. She told him to follow his gut, it had worked out well for her. She also told him that if he picked an unworthy candidate to fill the position of Lancelot when she was gone she would come back and haunt him until the end of time. (So when Lee Unwin later threw himself on a grenade to save three lives, it was at least some comfort to Harry to know that Roxy would have been happy with his pick.)

Harry’s candidate was weeded out in the first round – Roxy teased him about it for a week. Her own candidate threw in the towel after round two and she reconsidered her advice to Harry before the next position opened up. 

Roxy was out in the field when Merlin died of a stroke. Harry caught her on the phone, having called her hotel eleven times and breaking every communication protocol they had, because he was determined to tell her before she heard a new voice over the radio. She wasn’t back in the UK in time for the funeral, but when she did get back her first stop was 3 000 feet under the tailor shop where she found the young, but extremely tech-savvy Hamish. 

“Merlin,” she said, offering him her hand. “You have giant shoes to fill.”

He nodded and shook her hand with a firm grip. They would work well together, and he would end up indirectly saving her life three times. He was also the only one who never asked her if she regretted not having children. 

Almost twenty years after Roxy had looked her poor, sweet poodle in the eyes and shot her with a blank, another woman did the same. She got the code name Gawain. She wasn’t Roxy’s candidate – in the end, Roxy only nominated men – but she was as proud of her as if she had been. 

Roxy was even more proud of her agency, though, because it only took three weeks for Gawain to be put in the field. 

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen.

The first female Kingsman agent bled out on an operating table after 24 years of service, having taken a knife to the gut in Rotterdam. Hamish got the call, because being Merlin meant being every agents’ next of kin. He told Harry just before they walked in to have the formal briefing. Harry spent every evening that week in Roxy’s office, putting together a scrapbook of the clippings she’d kept in her desk drawer. He put it in a bookshelf in his sitting room and never opened it again.

They buried Roxy in a private cemetery, next to all the agents whose bodies they had been able to get back to London during the years. On the headstone, above her name, was a small crest with three red strips chiselled out. 

The crest of Lancelot.


End file.
